Show ANSWERS TO ASKERS Bill Ifye Furnishes Food for Anxious Anx-ious Minds to Digest THE WORK OF A WESTERN POET nill Close Social Relations with Slttlne imll Furnishes Some Very Inter estine z ilattcr ron TITE SUNDAY HERALD By special arrangement with the author j The past thirty days have been very productive of interrogatories by mail for i I this department and I desire at this time to express thanks for the interest shown and the appetite knowledge manifested manifest-ed by these frequent calls for information informa-tion upon Subjects so widely and so diametrically dia-metrically differing in character the knowledge of which is yet so important to each writer in fitting himself or herself her-self for the great battle of life 1 trust that the somewhat bantering tone employed em-ployed at times in the treatment ot these subjects will not deter future correspondents corre-spondents from ever and again tapping this perennial font of varied though sometimes fly blown information Pimply Hams assumed name Ijudge writes from Aspen Colo SmI am the author of a number of little poetic bits some of whom have been printed and lately I have thought that although there was very little money into it I would do well as a matter of prestige and in order to catch on to the drawing room element if I would write some more ambitious pieces for the magazines mag-azines So I done so and done it so as uot to offend either publication sending a poem to each The Century sand s-and Harpers also a little oriental pean to The Atlantic Monthly Some of these magazines wrote tome to-me by means of a job press that they liked my elSe but that it was not fitted to their columns I wrote back for them to tell me how much the filing run over or how short it was of a page and I would trim her up so it would fit but to this 1 got no reply I have decided from having gotten brief and rather conventional con-ventional replies all around together with the manuscript which I sent that unless you have a pull as a poet on these magazines you might as well go to soliciting solic-iting orders for fruit trees in perdition as to expect yon can suit the morbid i taste of these people I 1 write great deal of verse because have considerable leisure whilst herding herd-ing sheep here fort man who pays me n mere pittance It is an uneventful job but I try to do it in such a way as to make myself necessary to the owner Some of my verso is light and effervescent efferves-cent like Charlotte Rouge whilst other is more filling and heavier like what you might call the rump steak of rhyme I wish you would tell me as between old frontiersmen and coworkers in the literary vineyard what in your opinion is eating the editors of the magazines I give you one stanza of a little epic which I drew off and sent to The Atlantic Atlan-tic Monthly to show you that because I dont live in Milk street or belong to the Papyrus club of Boston the romping children of my unshackled brain it seems has got to cut their front teeth on the cactus of Colorado whilst the maddening madden-ing aroma of hot beans comes dimly across the unquenchable distance Soporific beatific Anti in much felicitude Lies Samoa in the vast Pacific Ami her sons they are terrific Although they are mostly nude Your attitude Mr Harris toward the magazines is entirely unwarranted and cannot be supported at all While your idea of obtaining a livelihood by herding herd-ing sheep and writing pieces for the magazines in order to obtain social recognition recog-nition shows great business foresight you must admit that some of your verse lacks merit and your clubfooted measures meas-ures cannot possibly get there You will excuse slang when I say that the verse you send me can hardly hope to get there at least with both feet Magazine editors are engaged in editing edit-ing their publications i Mr Harris foi the use of magazine readers I do not mean that the magazine reader is entirely en-tirely different as to his anatomy or die t rom the reader of the morning paper t H R i Il f F4 r L I7 g 1 1 1 a j THE IAN ABOUT TOWN I I in fact it is generally the same person only in different moods and with different J j j dif-ferent environments When he is going j j to his work in the street car or ferry all tho week he reads the paper so that he 1 may intelligently meet with and compete i com-pete with others who read On Sunday 1 he also wishes to know where his friends on the stage or in politics or anywhere I else may bp and what they are doing There is a kind of general reception held + on Sunday morning through the papers tendered by the readers to every manor man-or woman of distinction in the world You can come there and shake hands with them for five cents The magazine comes in at eventide each thirty days with an air of elegant deliberation It comes with the gentle soothe which you cannot get from the clash and combat and hurrah and death and destruction told by the types of the daily paper So you must write simply with that idea in view Your highly nrlTtfir description of the island of Samoa Sa-moa is so soft and chastened that when you strike your lyre with a discordant clash and refer to the scandalous costume cos-tume of the people there yon shock every magazine writer from Maine to Mexico The only real good original thing you sent one Mr Harris was written by Eugene Field Alonzo Dowd of WestSt Paul writes a 1 > If + ef would like also to do business in New York but am deterred by the expense ex-pense of living there I can get twice as much salary there as I can here but am told by a friend who has lived in New I I I York eight years that he cannot on I double his St Paul salary keep the wolf from the door How is that I Well possibly your friend has to keep the wolf from twice as many doors as he used to That is often the case in j New York 1 am told It is quite often the case Mr Dowd that a prosperous man gets into the toils of pleasing people 1 peo-ple who interest him and obtain control ol him and some day when he has eaten I a hearty meal of victuals and dropped dead on receipt of the bill his neigh i i hors are surprised to see two sets of tombstones erected by his two sets of families You will find no doubt that too often while a man in a large town is salivating akJ l I j r = = 7 SITTING BULLS SIGNATURE the wolf at one door another animal of thesame land is scratching the paint off his other residence I am sorry to know that these things exist and no one can I be more pained than I am to see two sets of widows tearing up the greensward green-sward and pelting each other with im mortelles the grave of one they have loved as one man but it sometimes occurs oc-curs and if you contemplate removing to New York and your wife favors it rather more than you do on account of the great shopping facilities thus afforded afford-ed I advise you to show her this piece Coming as it does from a litterateur and man about town it is of great value C M Springfield Mass writes DEAR Sm Praying that you will not throw this letter into the waste basket before reading it I will endeavor to give you the reason for its being written I am a man of 40 years married and a constant reader of your work and can assure you a warm admirer of the same I But Mr Nye 1 have a brother who is no less so Well he is married for the past six months and is a very straightforward straight-forward business man but last Sunday while at church seated in the same pew I felt shocked to have him commence playing with his wife taking her Bible from her changing rings and fooling around generally to the constant annoyance annoy-ance of others and the thought at once suggested to me to write you knowing your remarkably peculiar way of writing writ-ing on such topics and suggest that if when thinking of n subject to write upon you should adopt this it would be read with great interest by a great many and you would confer a great favor upon me and hundreds of mankind will call you blessed There can be nothing more reprehensible reprehen-sible than the custom among frivolous people of carrying the customs and etiquette eti-quette of the skating rink into the sanctuary It is far more consistent to stay away from church entirely and read the Sunday paper on some pretext or other than to whisper and play tag through the litany Of course young people are more difficult to manage in church and their spirits are more buoyant buoy-ant than those of more elderly people so they should not be so harshly dealt with but a grown man with a full head of whiskers who will go to church and whisper and frolic through the service or tho sermon may one day when it is i too late turn on the fire alarm and get t no response i People who have not respect enough for whatever they are attending to keep I quiet and listen or let others at least f J do more to make me doubt and distrust i the wide open policy of Col Ingersoll l than most anybody else I j I There are only two kinds of more contemptible con-temptible people One is the man who baits his lobster traps with his grandparents grand-parents and the other is the microbe j who writes you anonymously on a postal card I Commie ill Faw One Hundred and I Twentyninth street writes What j should I do with callers who come just j as I am about to go calling myself 2 I What sort of man was Sitting Bull per I sonally Did you meet him while on the frontier I A good way to cut short a disagreeable call is to come down stairs with yom i sealskin sacque on Some keep a wintei I cloak or bonnet handy for such emergencies emer-gencies and do first rate without getting i a reputation for rudeness It is very painful indeed to have a string of caller catch and hold you all through a pleasant I pleas-ant afternoon when you had made calculations I calcu-lations on going out and making fort or fifty calls and feeling sure that with the bright weather you would find no one at home Sometimes it takes a week in uncertain weather with more or less people at home to cover the ground you might on a pleasant afternoon go over in two hours 2 Yes I knew Sitting Bull and got him to write in my album in the summer sum-mer of 1S7G I had letter to him from the Prince of Wales Sitting Bull was personally very gentle and courteous to his friends but a most disagreeable person 1 per-son to invite to your house to meet a mixed company A friend of mine asked Mr Bull to come to dinner and meet the pastor at his house at one time and he said he would never do so again The great chief was not in good form He was ill natured and swore at table because his luxuriant hair got in the mayonnaise dressing 1 Sitting Bull was married three times two of his wives surviving him He was liberal in his religious views and bitterly opposed to silk underwear among his people He scoffed at the teachings of Delsarte and did not go to hear the Rev Joseph Cook lecture though at one time he could have done so by walking less than nine miles j Sitting Bull with better supplies and more encouragement from the war de partment would have made a very successful i suc-cessful commander but socially hE had i no l sfcmdinp Washington and so mili tary leaders with less ability but more pull were promoted while he was kept in the background like a poor boy at a frolic P STile sensational report that old Sit was the illegitimate son of John Bull is absolutely without foundation Ole John and Sitting were in no way related to each other B N Unsatisfied A certain young lady of Pittsburg who has not yet reached her third birthday birth-day makes her papas > life a burden by her persistent demand for tories Tell me a tory papa she will say and papa has to submit Under the encouragement of his little daughter papa is developing into a Baron Munchausenof no mean caliber One day not long ago in response to an urgent invitation the following tory was told Once there was a mosquito This mosquito had a family of three young mosquitoes in a nest up a big tree The little mosquitoes said to their mamma Wes very hungry Then the mamma l mosquito went to a house where there was a nice fat baby asleep in a crib The mamma mosquito carried the baby off to her nest and divided it up among her children Two of the little mosquitoes had ale a-le apiece and the mamma mosquito and the other baby mosquito each ate an arm After these were eaten the rest of the fat baby was put away for supper Thats all of that story When the narration was concluded the unsatisfied infant remarked Tell me a bigger tory than that papa Harpers Young People |